Kim Possible is an Americananimated children's television series about a teenage crime fighter who has the task of dealing with worldwide, family, and school issues every day. The show is action-oriented, but also has a light-hearted atmosphere and often lampoons the conventions and clichés of the secret-agent and action genres. It marked the second animated Disney Channel Original Series, and was the first series to be produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, in association with Disney Channel.

Originally broadcast from 2002 until 2007, Kim Possible was Disney Channel's longest running original animated series until it was surpassed by Phineas and Ferb, but still remains unique for being given one more season after the finale movie due to fan demand. In 2015, the Disney Channel series K.C. Undercover uses the same similar concept of a teenage spy.

The series revolves around Kim’s fight against criminals as well as her everyday life problems as a normal teenager, which are usually presented as a subplot.[3] Kim lives in what is supposed to be an "Any Town, USA" named Middleton, although it is built around a thriving NASA-like Space Center with several supportive Science Labs.

Creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley claim they created the show in an elevator. As they tell it, McCorkle looked at Schooley and said, "Kim Possible: she can do anything". Schooley at once replied, "Her partner is Ron Stoppable: he can't do anything". The creators also maintain that it was always their intention for Kim and Ron to eventually become involved romantically, rather than just remaining best friends. This becomes a reality in the supposed series-ending movie, Kim Possible: So the Drama. The romantic theme also continues in season four.[4]

The series premiered on Disney Channel on June 7, 2002,[5] and the first episode to air, "Crush", was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award the following year. After the premiere of this episode, Kim Possible was the most-watched and highest-rated television show on Disney Channel at that time. The series as a whole was nominated for the Daytime Emmy in 2004 and again in 2005 (that year it received five nominations and won one for Outstanding Sound Mixing — Live Action and Animation).[6] The show has been widely praised for its dialogue, animation, and characters (both heroic and villainous).[7]

On February 22, 2005, after three seasons and 65 episodes, the show ended production. Due to the popularity of the series and grassroots operations by dedicated KP fans, Disney announced on November 29, 2005, that the show would be renewed for a fourth season, which debuted on Disney Channel on February 10, 2007. The series finale aired on September 7, 2007, with the airing of the one-hour-long concluding episode "Graduation."[8]

Steve Loter documented the production of the final episode of season four, and thus the completion of the Kim Possiblefranchise, in a blog titled "So the Finale" hosted on Blogger. It included behind-the-scenes and production information from the perspective of the crew as well as production sketches from one of several alternative endings that had been scripted. "So the Finale" maintained an open comment system allowing fans to express their views on the franchise and its closure.[9]

The series is currently the second longest running Disney Channel Original Series in terms of duration, running for five years and three months, having been surpassed by Phineas & Ferb in 2013.

Episodes were broadcast in syndication in the United States on Disney-affiliated channels such as Toon Disney and ABC as part of its ABC Kids lineup.[10] On September 27, 2013, Kim Possible returned to Disney Channel for a single airing of two episodes part of Disney Channel's 'Throwback Thursday' midnight timeslot.[11] This airing was repeated on September 28, 2013. From 2014 to 2015, Kim Possible aired weekdays on Disney XD in the United States. The series also airs on Disney-affiliated channels around the world in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, India, South Africa, and several Eastern European countries.

Kim Possible comes to Kauai with Ron Stoppable in an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series named after Ron's pet naked mole rat Rufus. The two help Lilo rescue Stitch from Dr. Drakken, while Jumba mistakes Rufus for one of his missing experiments.

The show centers around beautiful teenage crime-fighter Kim Possible and her faithful and loveable (yet trouble-prone) sidekick and boyfriend (since Season 4) Ron Stoppable. Ron owns a pet naked mole-rat named Rufus, who proves an excellent aide to Ron and Kim in their many battles versus Dr. Drakken and various other foes. Ron is also the main source of comic relief for the show. During the show, Kim and Ron progress through Middleton High School, starting in tenth grade in the pilot episode, Crush, and ending with a graduation party as Seniors in the final episode, Graduation.

Together, the duo fights various antagonists, most commonly Doctor Drakken, assisted by his beautiful henchwoman Shego, whose unsuccessful world domination schemes appear in most episodes of the show. The other common villains are Monkey Fist, Duff Killigan, Señor Senior, Sr. and Jr., and Professor Dementor. Monkey Fist starts out as an Indiana Jones-like persona, but soon turns into a megalomaniacal practitioner of monkey kung fu also known as Tai Shing Pek Kwar as shown in the episode Monkey Fist Strikes written by Gary Sperling, which is a real-life fighting discipline supernaturalized and portrayed as mystical in the series.[12] Duff Killigan is an overweight Scottishgolf player who wears a kilt and attacks his opponents with exploding golf balls.[13] The Señor Senior father and son duo are at first just extremely rich people owning a large resort island. However, they are inadvertently pushed into the evil business by Ron Stoppable. Senior, the father, is more business-oriented, as his son tends to exploit the evil ways for not-so-evil deeds, such as opening a personal disco.[14][15] Little is revealed about Professor Dementor, an antagonist with a German accent obsessed with world domination schemes like Doctor Drakken, his sworn enemy, although Dementor usually turns out to be more successful.[16][17]

Based on the series, the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure was an interactive attraction that took place in several of Epcot's World Showcase pavilions in Walt Disney World. The attraction is an electronic scavenger hunt that has guests using special "Kimmunicators" (in actuality, modified cell phones) to help Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable solve a "crime" or disrupt an evil-doer's "plans for global domination." The "Kimmunicator" is able to trigger specific events within the pavilion grounds that provide clues to completing the adventure. Launched in January 2009 and presented by Verizon Wireless, the Adventure is included in park admission.[18]

The attraction was closed on May 18, 2012 to make way for a similar attraction themed around the character of "Agent P" from the Disney Channel animated television show Phineas and Ferb. The new attraction, now called "Disney's Phineas and Ferb's Agent P World Showcase Adventure" opened in June 2012.[19]

Kim Possible airs in syndication on many Disney-affiliated networks around the world. An Arabic dub made its debut on Disney Channel Middle East in 2002, whilst later occasionally airing for MBC 3's "Disney on 3" block. For the dub, most of the characters' names were changed to reflect the lingual puns of the original names; Kim Possible is called "Damo Staheel" (a pun on the term mostaheel [مستحيل] which is Arabic for "impossible"), Ron Stoppable became "Mostah Aed", Rufus was changed to "Fa'roon", Wade is called "Awad", Shego is called "Shahira", and Dr. Drakken is "Daraken". The name change was common when the show began airing abroad; for example, in the French dub, Ron is called Robin Trépide ("Intrépide", meaning intrepid: some kind of a courageous and adventurer). In addition, the Arabic dub of the series was initially performed by Lebanese actors, when traditionally it is Egyptian, however, for some unknown reason, the dubbing cast was entirely changed to Egyptian actors for the fourth season. Despite this, the Arabic dub of Kim Possible was one of the few Disney TV series that used standard Arabic instead of a colloquial Arabic dialect, although colloquial terms were loosely used. For airings in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Kim was dubbed by popular German voice actress Anna Carlsson.

In Bulgaria, Kim Possible premiered as Ким Суперплюс in 2005 on BNT Channel 1, with a dub produced by Disney Character Voices International; however, the Disney Weekend block the show aired during was closed without notice on January 1, 2006. After more than two years of absence, Jetix CEE brought the series' first season back in August 2008, with the old Bulgarian dub appearing in October of that year. After Jetix was changed to Disney Channel, it aired repeats of season 2 (which aired on Channel 1 as well). It has been reported that the previously undubbed season 3 is now ready for broadcasting. It is expected that it will be dubbed by the same sound studio as before (Alexandra Audio).

Music was also changed to reflect localization. In the Japanese version of this show, Beni Arashiro sang the main theme "Call Me Beep Me" in both Japanese and English.